Share the article: ILGOP Joins Lawsuit Challenging Democrat-drawn Legislative Maps

Today the Illinois Republican Party is joining the Illinois House and Senate Republican caucuses in a lawsuit challenging the partisan legislative maps drawn and passed by Illinois Democrats in the General Assembly and signed into law by Governor JB Pritzker.

“I am proud to join Republican leaders in Illinois who are fighting to put the power back in the hands of the people. Voters should pick their politicians instead of politicians picking their voters,” said Illinois Republican Party Chairman Don Tracy. “From the Speaker of the House to the Governor, Democrats fundamentally betrayed the people of Illinois when they ran for office supporting an independent map-making commission and then broke their word by ramming through partisan redistricting. The Illinois Republican Party is standing up for our democracy as Democrats openly and proudly disenfranchise voters.”

The lawsuit argues that the use of American Community Survey (ACS) estimates violates federal law, including well established “one-person, one-vote” principles under the U.S. Constitution. Republicans aren’t the only ones criticizing Illinois Democrats’ partisan map-making process devoid of transparency. 

President Joe Biden recently spoke passionately in communications to the National Democratic Redistricting Committee that the partisan redistricting process performed by House Speaker Chris Welch and Senate President Don Harmon, and approved by JB Pritzker, was part of an “unfolding assault taking place in America today, an attempt to suppress and subvert the right to vote in free and fair elections.” He said politician-drawn maps are “an assault on democracy, assault on liberty, and an assault on who we are as Americans.”

Chairman Tracy added, “The ILGOP joined the lawsuit today because the people of Illinois need all the help they can get in restricting the ability of a billionaire bully like JB Pritzker to ‘suppress and subvert the right to vote in free and fair elections,’ as President Biden said.”

The lawsuit requests that the court declare the Democrats’ plan to be unconstitutional, invalid, and void ab initio. The lawsuit also requests that the court direct Speaker Welch and President Harmon to make their appointments to the Illinois Legislative Redistricting Commission as required by the Illinois Constitution.

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